Filibuster Cartoons
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When you’re in the political cartooning biz, it can sometimes be a bit of a chore to follow each and every political happening that the media tells you is important — especially when all available evidence seems to suggest otherwise. This is very much how I feel about Canada’s recent postal strike, which “crippled” the nation for a couple of weeks this month, before finally concluding yesterday.
Canada is one of the increasingly few major industrialized nation that has not yet privatized its postal delivery, meaning that all mail in the country is still delivered via Canada Post, a 19th Century Crown corporation run by the state. All Canadian posties are similarly unionized government employees, and as unionized government employees are want to be, they generally exist in a perpetual state of snippy anger over their already very generous pay, hours, and benefits. Contract negotiations were up, and the Canada Post managers wanted to lower pay for new employees; the union wanted a raise. So the union voted to take job action, and on June 3 began one-city-at-a-time rotating strikes o’er the land. CP responded by locking them out, and then Prime Minister Harper announced his plans to break the strike by tabling so-called “back to work legislation” in parliament, that would unilaterally impose a new employment contract, bypassing all the usual song-and-dance.
Harper’s legislation imposed harsher terms than the CP management’s own bargaining position, which is to say basically the pre-strike status quo coupled with a very small raise. Jack Layton, who is now leader of the opposition for some reason, responded by launching an NDP-led filibuster in the House of Commons for several days, to let the world know what an outrage this all was. But the Conservative majority was eventually able to push the thing through anyway, and the Governor General signed the law Sunday night, and now mail can resume. Hurrah.
The whole brouhaha was awash in much pageantry and theater, and certainly the NDP filibuster, which went on for almost 60 unbroken hours, was given much breathless coverage in all the newspapers. But really, who cares?
Physical mail delivery has obviously been an industry in decline for quite some time, with overall Canadian mailing having dropped by almost 20% in the last five years alone. Email, coupled with newer and fancier telephones, have made snail mail a useless anachronism for large segments of the population, particularly younger Canadians who have never known anything else. Corporate mail isn’t really picking up the slack either; Canada Post has generally awful international shipping rates, and since so many big Canadian businesses do so much trade with the US, a lot of nominally “Canadian” mail is actually outsourced to American companies directly, or other private couriers who specialize in that sort of thing. Who remains the post office’s “base” constituency for the future remains very uncertain, but no one, certainly not the striking deliverymen, seem to be much bothered by the thought.
So it was a weird issue for the NDP to go on the cross over, unless they are, in fact, exactly the party they’ve long been accused of being, namely a hyper-reactionary puppet of organized labor. Of course, the Conservatives don’t exactly emerge shining from all this either. Though Harper seemed perfectly content to play the role of (he imagines) right-wing bully facing down Big Union, his position displayed no real sense of foresight either. For all his supposed furor for the free market, the PM has never expressed any desire to begin chipping away at this increasingly questionable public sector monopoly, and seems content to merely have it do his bidding with minimal complaint.
If these last few weeks are any indication, the “polarization” of Canadian politics in the NDP-Conservative era may well turn out to be less about ideology and principle, and more about narrow, interest-group driven conflict. The NDP has cast itself as a party that will always take the side of organized labor, regardless of how sane or logical their demands. The Conservatives, in turn, have defined themselves as the party of the managerial class, guardians of status quo, and prickly defenders of the dignity of government.
Labor unions are not, by definition, always on the sides of the workers. Nor is government always engaged in a practice worth defending, no matter how hysterical its critics. In the wake of the great 2011 postal crisis that wasn’t, both parties would do well to remind themselves of these simple facts.
June 27th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Bring back the telegraph office!! I demand morse code sexting!
June 27th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Gee, I wonder if Canada's governmental postal service has anything to do with it being cheaper to ship to the USA than to other Canadian provinces.
June 27th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
That's the government for you. So behind on the times.
June 27th, 2011 at 6:55 pm
What if the Government striked and nobody cared?
June 27th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
I think we'd be hard pressed to send mail out into rural areas if it were privatized. This is the tradeoff with privatizing, is that money-losing areas lose their services. Of course, one could always stop living in the boonies too.
On the other hand, for those of use that live in the 3 major cities (Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver) metro areas would be better served if it was privatized since Canada Post is largely inefficient by trying to be efficient. You can't get something delivered in less than 3 days despite the addresses being in the same postal code.
June 27th, 2011 at 8:51 pm
Seems like the most suffering has been done by the small businesses that depend on CP for shipping their merchandise to buyers. I've certainly seen some anxious for the strike to end because people weren't buying if their only options were waiting out the strike or paying more for a private courier (which
June 27th, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Correction, JJ: the Post Office was established as a Crown Corporation in 1981. Before that, it was yon venerable Department of the Post Office of Canada, a full government department under the control of a cabinet minister called the Postmaster-General of Canada, who sounds like he would have a fancy uniform, but didn't.
Fun fact: the current CEO of Canada Post is named Deepak Chopra. But he's not the self-help guy.
June 27th, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Question. Couldn't the Conservatives have put a time allocation limit or cloture vote to end the filibuster?
June 27th, 2011 at 10:27 pm
I'm not entirely sure how the filibuster was even broken, since none of the news reports I've read mentioned that fact. The NDP had previously been going on about how their filibuster could have gone on forever. Anyone know what the parliamentary trick the Conservatives used was?
June 28th, 2011 at 4:15 am
I live in the States, and we had a similar setup prior to 1971. What is now the quasi-governmental United States Postal Service was once the Cabinet-level Post Office Department. However, we didn't have fancy uniforms – the old USPO had uniforms that looked like a bellhop uniform (see the end of the original "Miracle On 34th Street" as mailmen delivered sacks of mail to Kris Kringle in the courtroom). Today, USPS carriers look like they're on safari during the summer with their cargo shorts and pith helmets. I still fail to understand why Canada Post domestic rates are so high. I can send a first-class domestic letter here in the States for 44¢, and all new stamps will soon be "Forever stamps", which are recognized as valid forever for a first-class letter even after postage rates are hiked.
June 28th, 2011 at 8:08 am
I do believe each person can only speak *once* .. so there was no way it could have gone on forever. Just wishful thinking on the NDP's part.
My complaint with Harper's actions isn't that he said "Yeah yeah take what you get" .. it was "You snoozed and losed, here's LESS than what you could have had." Yes, its a message. However, the greater message is a bad one. I agree with him that Unions have too much power, but I don't agree they need to be routed at every turn. They do serve purpose.
He should have said "Enough is enough, this is the last deal, its reasonable, take it and shut up. Don't like it, well, there's the job bank."
I have been hurting due to postal strike – clients pay me via mail as it's less fee heavy than PayPal. (Canadians could continue to pay me via interac) My cupboards will be very happy to see mail return!
June 28th, 2011 at 9:49 am
""It seems like [Canada Post was] working hand-in-hand with the government," said Robert Mulvin, president of CUPW.
June 28th, 2011 at 7:29 pm
This quote really highlights a sort of leftist sentiment I have never understood. "We want the government to run everything, yet we also hate the government."
June 29th, 2011 at 5:15 am
You could do a deal like rail service. It's private, but the low-traffic areas are subsidized by the government (and Via is required to keep servicing those areas), but the high traffic areas are not.
June 30th, 2011 at 7:10 am
Funny, I fail to understand why USPS rates are so low.. seems like socialism for a first class letter to only cost 44 cents. ;)
Oh, and Canada already has "forever stamps".
July 1st, 2011 at 3:01 am
Happy Canada Day to all of those "up north"! We're only 3 days behind you, but 91 years ahead. Instead of celebrating '67, we celebrate '76 down here.
July 1st, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Speaking as a "leftist", it's not that we want the government to run everything. Quite the contrary. We simply disagree that the private sector can do any better of a job. Government has two sources of income – taxes and industry – and we simply want them to use both to ensure a minimum standard of living for everyone. This idea that government can't do anything and that privatization is some kind of magic bean irks me a little. Anything that private industry can do, government can as well.
The right, from our perspective, trusts the private sector an inordinate and unjustified amount. Personally, if I'm going to have big industry running my life, I'd rather have it be an industry I can elect and keep accountable. That's not to say our electoral system isn't deeply flawed, but it's a step up from some kind of free-market corporate feudalism.
Many of my right-leaning friends argue that we can speak to corporations with the free exercise of our money, but from my own experience, I find that this means those with the most money get to speak the loudest. Government gives those of us who aren't born privileged a leg up. It puts protections in place.
I don't hate the government. I'd even go so far as to say I love the idea of government, and that I love those aspects of my government that serve the public interest. I hate some of the things my government is doing currently, but I'm still glad there's one in place.
July 2nd, 2011 at 10:08 pm
I consider myself relatively centrist, but there are some things you may want to consider. (And I speak as someone who has worked in several public sector jobs, and is currently working for a public institution.)
I take exception to your statement that you are able to keep a Crown Corporation more accountable than another. In almost every measure, I have more direct control over just about any private, publicly-traded company in Canada than over Ontario Hydro, LCBO or any other Ontario company (I'm an Ontarian). Were I to want change in Ontario Hydro it'd be almost impossible for me to forward a motion, vote on who runs it or just about anything. The best I can hope for is maybe getting a major newspaper to write about whatever I say, and it rarely ever turns into enough political inertia to make anything happen. Sure, I vote in the general Ontario election but it's far too indirect for any meaningful change to come to Ontario Hydro directly.
However, I can relatively easily buy a few shares for a few hundred dollars in a publicly traded Canadian company (say RIM, for example) and at least then I can attend shareholder gatherings, vote on the board members, get lists of who the other shareholders are, make a shareholder proposal, and many other things. All for relatively low cost. Not only that, but I could also report suspicious things to the OSC with a simple phone call!
Imagine the shareholder revolt if RIM wasted a billion dollars like the Ontario government did on e-Health! There's looking to be a shareholder revolt just on people being unhappy with there being co-CEOs!
It's kind of a shame to say it, but really, Corporations in Canada have many tools for democracy that our civil governments don't. Unfortunately, they're rarely used.
That's not to say this is the only way people should be able to influence a corporation, nor just voting with their wallets, that's why we should also have legislation and regulation. But while the best I can do for an inept bureaucrat is complain, for an inept company director I have a lot more options.
And that's also not to say this is perfect, as the poorest are unable to do this, and this only applies to publicly traded companies (and it's also tough to get as much down with a company that has a majority shareholder). All things considered though, anyone who can afford a TV with cable/satellite could easily have diverted funds to become an active shareholder in a publicly-traded company they feel isn't being held accountable for its actions (I bought company shares just after college – before I owned a TV, smart phone, good computer or any furniture over $75 – so there are weird people like me out there who actually put their money where their mouth is).
[Side note, just a quick calculation, based on current market capitlization, and for just over $1300 I can have more potential influence on an RIM board election than I do for the Ontario general election - and that's with the assumption all Ontario votes are of equal value (as I live in a safe riding, my vote is worth substantially less in real terms - of course I can also join the party riding association and try to make a ruckus there)]
July 3rd, 2011 at 8:04 pm
h-c-g…
Lovely day for blogging huh…
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